Standing beneath the steeple, playing in the cornfields, learning to be a pastor while trying to faithfully preach the Good News, and the church who loves me anyway.

Transforming the “Green Eggs and Ham” Church

Transforming the Green Eggs and Ham Church
Acts 11:1-18
May 2, 2010–Easter 5C

Intro
I will not eat them in the rain.
I will not eat them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!
I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I bet you laugh– after all, it’s a cute children’s story that makes us think of days gone by–maybe days reading stories to our babies and grandbabies. But what if Dr. Seuss was also able to offer us a glimpse of ourselves in this silly story?

I don’t know about you– but I’m pretty good about making rules, and deciding what I like and what I don’t, or what I will do and what I won’t do– and sometimes, admittedly without being completely informed about the merits or consequences of my decision. Sometimes, I think, I just arbitrarily make these decisions, and then like the fellow in this cutesy rhyming story, it’s pretty hard to convince me to change my mind. I stomp my feet and am certain that I know best about how things are to be.

[The people in the early church, weren’t so much different, as Peter shows us in the story we heard earlier].

II. The Ins and Outs
Let me tell you a little bit about this story.

This is actually the second time we’re told this story– the first time being just the chapter before. Clearly this story was something that we’re supposed to be paying attention to.

But the second time, the context is a little bit different. We get the feeling that Peter is being called to the Principal’s Office (ooooooooooh). The religious leaders have heard that Peter was eating with the uncircumcised believers, and they want to know what that’s all about. I mean, surely Peter knew that that was against the rules, right? It just wasn’t done! The folks aren’t as charming as the two folks we meet in Green Eggs and Ham, but they’re having the same problem. There are some things that are simply not acceptable!

So Peter tells them everything that had happened, but he’s very careful to say things like “The Spirit told me to go with them and not make a distinction between them and us” and “If GOd gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who was I that I could hinder God?” And apparently it worked, because the words say “they were silenced when they heard this.”

But this revelation is so important that it plays a major role in the rest of the story of Acts. During the early church, both folks on the “inside” and “outside” were concerned about who was in and who was out. The newly minted apostles worked to help bring folks in after this revelation, because the fact that God is for people, rather than against them is so important.

This story talks about the uncircumcised, but because this sounds pretty foreign to our modern ears, what we are supposed to hear is that this distinction is a way of deciding who is in and who is out. It’s a way of identify the ones who are following the rules… and those that are not; a way of pointing out who is acceptable to pall around with and who isn’t. In short– it’s a way of creating walls between people.

I wonder how often we put boxes around God’s mission. I wonder how often we put walls between us and God’s people. I wonder how often we sell God short because of what we assume that God is like. Preacher Will Willimon tells this story, about one of his early churches and their assumptions on what is acceptable and what we think God would never want us to do:

We hired a church consultant, specialist in young adult ministry. She asked us, in her first session with us, “If I were to go looking for young adults this Friday night, where would I find them in this town?”
We didn’t know. Then, someone sheepishly spoke up. “Well, I guess that would have to be at the ‘Red Armadillo,’ out on the edge of town.”
“Let’s all go there this Friday, set up shop, and see who the Lord sends us.”
What? Good, Christian, respectable folk like us go to a place like that?
“Do you want to reach out to young adults in the name of Christ or don’t you?” she asked.1

I don’t know much about the “Red Armadillo”, but it doesn’t sound like any place I’d want to take our session on a field trip. Surely God wouldn’t expect us to take such drastic measures as that? Surely God wouldn’t even want us to go into places like that, right?

And surely, God is just going to hand deliver us a gaggle of folks who are just dying to be members of the church. Right?

Huh. Oddly that hasn’t happened yet.

[BEAT]

Or at least not in any sort of way that we might recognize. I wonder what ministry opportunities we might have missed out on both as individuals and as a church because we’ve assumed that we know what is and what isn’t acceptable. I wonder how often we’ve shouted “Unclean!” at people and ideas. (Of course, we’d never actually say that out loud, much less shout it. But I think it’s entirely possible to shout with our actions and attitudes.)

The Cost of Our Assumptions

At what cost do we decide who is “in” and who is “out”?

Fred Craddock tells about a church he knew. He remembered it as the status church, First Church Downtown, it was called. Everybody who was anybody went to that church, when Fred was a boy. Not just anybody could walk in there and join. Income and proper attire seemed a membership requirement at First Church.
As you might imagine, First Church did not receive many new members. Members simply grew older. As an adult, Fred learned that First Church had closed. Too few people of the “right type,” I guess.
Fred had occasion to go back to town and discovered that old First Church was still standing. But now it was a restaurant, a fish restaurant. He walked in the big gothic doors and, sure enough, where there had once been pews, now there were tables, and waiters, and diners. He looked down the nave of the old church and where the communion table had once stood, now there was a salad bar.
He walked out the front door, back down the steps, muttering to himself, “Now, I guess everybody is welcome to eat at the table.”2
Ouch. That’s all that I can think to say. That story sends shivers down my spine, and if I’m not keeping my emotions in check, it brings tears to my eyes.

At what cost do we build walls? At what cost do we limit God’s mission? Apparently the cost is great.

Seeking Good News of Transformation
But… I don’t think this story is really about the cost of putting up walls. I think this story is a glorious invitation to be transformed by Good News. It’s an amazing story of a God who won’t leave us to our narrow-mindedness.

Think about how Peter is transformed. He’s happy to pull a “Green Eggs and Ham” and tell God exactly what he won’t do. I imagine he has a brief moment of patting himself on the back– maybe he believes that God is tempting him. And look how great he is–he’s not going to be tempted! I love his response as phrased in The Message: “Oh, no, God. My lips have never touched anything that wasn’t Kosher.”

God, though, has a different idea about things and surprises Peter by saying “Don’t call unclean what I have called clean.” Ouch. That’s hardly the praise he was expecting.

But something changes for Peter. And instead of deciding what’s in and what’s out, and who is in and who is out, Peter focuses on bringing everyone in.

There’s a little bitty detail included in both versions of the story that makes a major difference. In Peter’s vision, the sheet that comes down is BIG. Huge, enormous, all encompassing. It contains all the animals that have ever existed.

That’s a lot of “ins” if you ask me.

God’s GRACE is sooooo big that it draws everything in–no one is out, including you and me, including everyone that we wouldn’t necessarily bring in. But… God’s LOVE is so big, that it won’t leave us alone to limit God’s mission.

Growing Christ’s church deep and wide (Who are we that we can hinder God?)

Peter poses an important rhetorical question in his own defense when he says, “Who was I that I could hinder God?”

Obviously, we know the answer. God’s mission, ultimately, will not be hindered. We don’t get to stop God’s mission, not with narrow-mindedness, not with hardness of heart, not at all.

So the important question becomes not “Who am I that I could hinder God?” but instead “What am I doing to bring about God’s all encompassing mission in the world?”

There’s a movement beginning in the Presbyterian Church that is gradually gaining steam called “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide”. The church acknowledges that we (as a denomination) have spent a lot of time sitting on “tradition”, and maybe overlooking some important ministry opportunities. The idea of “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide” is that we begin to really look at ALL the people the church could be serving.

I saw this video at the conference I was at a few weeks ago, and it really made me think, not only about our rules, but about the transformation that is possible.

[Show video]Website folks, I can’t make it load, but you can check it out at https://www.pcusa.org/evangelism It’s the second video box you come to, which has four links underneath it. Choose “In Evangelism”

Isn’t that amazing? The very folks that were the outsiders became a very central part of the church.

For years before even I came, this church has talked about wanting to grow, but despite our very best efforts we have remained a small church that longs for the day when we our nurseries and sunday school rooms will be filled. Our session is to the point where it needs your help. We need you to partner with us and help us actively look for ways that we can reach out, and bring those “outside” in. We need your thoughts and ideas and, without a doubt, prayers, as we seek to be transformed into a church that doesn’t limit God’s mission in the world, but instead runs to welcome all people. The truth is that every single one of us could think of lots of really good reasons why we’d like to keep the church just as it is, filled with the people that we have known forever. But God’s invitation to us is to experience something bigger than that.

The words to Peter are a bit of a wakeup call for all churches who have gotten comfortable in the “way that things have always been” and an invitation to transformation as God’s reminds us not to “call unclean what I call clean.” And thanks be to God– the sheet that Peter saw in his vision is a big, all encompassing sheet. Big enough for you, for me, and for all those out there… now all we need to do is find a way to tell “them” that.

Amen

Charge: I started this sermon with Green Eggs and Ham and how the fellow was just sure that he wouldn’t like them. He put his foot down and refused. But here’s how the book ends: You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them!And you may. Try them and you may, I say.
Sam! If you will let me be, I will try them. You will see.
Say! I like green eggs and ham! I do! I like them, Sam-I-am! And I would eat them in a boat. And I would eat them with a goat…
And I will eat them in the rain. And in the dark. And on a train. And in a car. And in a tree. They are so good, so good, you see!

So I will eat them in a box.
And I will eat them with a fox.
And I will eat them in a house.
And I will eat them with a mouse.
And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!
I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am!

I think that’s how really seeking to fulfill God’s mission works. Sometimes it seems contrary to what we’d do, but once we’re really apart of it, we’re blown away by how amazing it is. My prayer is that you will partner with us to bring about this transformation in this church.